"We make a living by what we get,We make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill .

.."If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"- Rudyard Kipling."I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." - Alexander the Great

"We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship." - Omar Nelson Bradley

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather." - John Ruskin .Action without vision is only a way of passing the time Vision without action is only a dream Vision with action can change the world - - Joel A. Barker

Anyone can become angry - that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not easy - - Aristotle - The Nicomachean Ethics

I hear and I forgetI see and I rememberI do and I understand - - Confucius

"Don't judge any man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins".- Native American Proverb."Come, come, whoever you are. Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. It doesn't matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a thousand times Come, yet again, come, come."- Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi

"For beauty being the best of all we know" by Robert Bridges For beauty being the best of all we know Sums up the unsearchable and secret aims Of nature, and on joys whose earthly names Were never told can form and sense bestow; And man has sped his instinct to outgo The step of science; and against her shamesImagination stakes out heavenly claims, Building a tower above the head of woe. Nor is there fairer work for beauty found Than that she win in nature her release From all the woes that in the world abound; Nay with his sorrow may his love increase, If from man's greater need beauty redound, And claim his tears for homage of his peace.

Soup

I saw a famous man eating soup.

I say he was lifting a fat broth Into his mouth with a spoon.

His name was in the newspapers that daySpelled out in tall black headlinesAnd thousands of people were talking about him.

When I saw him,He was bending his head over a platePutting soup in his mouth with a spoon.

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."- Madame Marie Curie (won two Nobel Prizes but was never admitted to the French Academie des Sciences).

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde

“If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy hyacinths, for they would feed my soul.” - The Koran

“One should eat to live, not live to eat.” — Mouliėre

“The defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors.” Henry Becque

“Old age is not an illness, it is a timeless ascent. As power diminishes, we grow towards the light.” May Sarton

“Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”—Mark Twain

“People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.” - W. Somerset Maugham

“We’re all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.” - Tennessee Williams

“Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving.” O. Henry

“In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires.” - Benjamin Franklin

“Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much—Joan Collins

“Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.” - Oliver Herford

“It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned.”—Oscar Wilde

From To You - by Walt Whitman

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!You have not known what you are -, you have slumber’d upon yourself all your life;The mockeries are not you;Underneath them and within them I see you lurk;Whoever you are! claim your own...

The Speech Of The High One - From the Old Norse, The Poetic Edda (ca. AD 1200) I know I hung on that windswept tree,Swung there for nine long nights,Wounded by my own blade,Bloodied for Odin,Myself an offering to myself:Bound to the treeThat no man knowsWhither the roots of it run.None gave me bread,None gave me drink.Down to the deepest depths I peeredUntil I spied the Runes.

With a roaring cry I seized them up,Then dizzy and fainting, I fell.Well-being I wonAnd wisdom too.From a word to a wordI was led to a word,From a deed to another deed.

.Time

Too slow for those who wait,Too swift for those who fear,Too long for those who grieve,Too short for those who rejoice,But for those who love, time isEternity. Hours fly, flowers die,New days, new ways, pass by.Love stays.

By Henry Van Dyke

I call you Far Rider…because you are one who rides far from himself. And wishes not to look home. Until you do…you are lost.” Chief Eagle Horn – HidalgoInnocence and PerceptionGod-like visions in child’s eyes,Fragrant gems drape from heavy-laden boughsAdorning prosperous bushesParading street corners, Adults walk by, unseeing.

.Not Alone by Earl Waller copyright 2015For now that I have gone home It is time for you to hold the throne To fear the least my young child Just know that you are not alone.To hear the whispers and see the flickersTo remember our long jokes and little snickersTo avoid any groans and moansJust know that you are not alone.

For a vision that may overtake A sight of me you may mistakeFor what I’m now could be a stoneJust know that you are not alone.Within this world of great deceasedI bring about you joy and peace And with every smile on your face it’s shownSo just know you are not alone.And again we will be as oneWithin this heavenly place called homeUntil then, just know that you are not alone.

And that you are still aliveIn you my child I shall resideBut one day eventually you will seeThe same treatment done to me-In which my master will set YOU free.

Born an AmericanBut I was raised multiculturalI’ve ventured too many placesBut this was the most historical.An island all by itself by the name of JapanWith a make-up similar to an architectural planWhere from a birds-eye resembled no ones landAfraid of whether or not I’d land.

Once on my feet I begin to reminisceOn a life that I’d truly missIn desperate search of a trusteeThat whom was the same as me.Mesmerized by the paintings that lay upon the walls,Aligned sightings of a dragon holding crystal balls,Ladies dressed in golden kimono robes,Tables set up with many different origami shows.

As I watched them it seemed like fancy tricks,For some odd reason they ate with sticks,With music that seemed like the Japanese blues,It was then I noticed the mats that stated: “please remove your shoes.”To me this seemed as something new,Something in North America I would not do,From that moment I knew,-This was going to take some getting used to...“I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.” Elbert Hubbard

.“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.” - Aesop

“The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he made so many of them.” - Abraham Lincoln.“Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.” - Mark Twain

“What a commentary on our civilization when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it—like a secret vice!” Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude.” James Russell Lowell

“Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.” Benjamin Disraeli

“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” - Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

“Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.” - Thomas Fuller

“The only Zen you find on the top of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.” -Robert M. Pirsig

“One fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” - Robert F. Kennedy

“I have no country to fight for: my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.” - Eugene V Debs

“Nature is the art of God.” - Dante

“The good neighbour looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and therefore, brothers.” - Martin Luther King, JR.

“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” - English Proverb

“There are two levers for moving men—interest and fear.” - Napoleon 1

“After a certain number of years, our faces become our biographies.” - Cynthia Ozick

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” - Aldous Huxley

“A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to be known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.” - Fred Allen

“All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife...Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.” - Beatrix Potter